MASS MEDIOCRITY AND THE MOTIVATION PEOPLE PATTERN™

“Human nature is such that if we are relatively content, then we are not going to be motivated to do anything to change our comfort zone, whether it be now or later.” Marilyne Woodsmall

This is more on Personality Language(tm) from Marilyne Woodsmall.  I will say it again, grab the book, it will help you better understand people and make you a lot more money. – Easy Anderson

Why is this so? It is because when people have already gotten all the carrots and sticks they think they need to lead what they believe to be an acceptable lifestyle, then they no longer have that fire burning within to move any farther. Life is okay as is, nothing more nothing less, no bells and whistles; yet this is satisfactory to them so they don’t care to budge one bit. These are the very people who end up staying in jobs for years and are quite content to do so.

Most people are mired in mediocrity. All too sad yet true. These are the so-called masses. And these are precisely the people who don’t want to change even if they have the opportunity to do so as I’ll explain shortly.

This has major implications regarding motivation in the workplace. There are basically four reasons why people aren’t motivated:

1. People who are move toward in orientation and have nothing towards which to move.

2. People who are move away from and have nothing from which to move away.

3. People who are move toward and who have reached their set goals and have nothing else to get them out of their satisfaction zone.

4. People who are move away from and who have somehow managed to move away from all the things which they would like to avoid.

The last two types are the most challenging elements in any workforce because they don’t want to move in any direction. These people are a nightmare to any team, to any manager, to any organization, to anyone who wants to get ahead because they are indifferent to change. These people are the masses, the people who are content to live their lives in mediocrity.

Once again, the Motivation People Pattern is the basis of everything that we do in life, or don’t do for that matter. Imagine the possibilities if we could move people from relatively content to ecstatic and beyond! Tune in for more next time.

DO TESTIMONIALS REALLY WORK? PART II:

By Marilyne Woodsmall

WHEN TO USE THEM AND WHEN NOT…

In our prior discussion, I talked about the Evaluation People Pattern™. This critical Evaluation People Pattern™ determines how an individual makes a judgment. In the context of sales, this pattern reveals how an individual makes a judgment to buy a product or service.

If you remember, there are two types of people when it comes to the Evaluation People Pattern™: Internal People and External People. Individuals who have what we call an Internal Referential Filter don’t want to hear about what other people are saying about a product or a service that they are thinking about purchasing. On the other side of the coin, there are those who have an External Referential Filter. They need to know what other people think before they purchase something. Remember, too, that there are some Internal People who will rely on what another person is saying if that person happens to be a proven expert on the product or service and has accurate information.

It makes a huge difference whether you are selling to someone with an internal pattern or an external pattern. Most Internal People think that the public at large is totally lacking in awareness and taste when it comes to making evaluations or judgments. In fact, our term, the Science of Idiots™ is quite apropos here, since Internal People view External People to be idiots for the most part. The former ask in referring to the latter: How is it possible to be such an idiot as to need another person’s opinion before buying something?

On the other hand, External People can’t imagine how a person can buy anything in life without getting feedback from others. They think that Internal People are idiots for not wanting the opinion of other people.

So what can you do to tailor your sales communication, whether one-on-one or on your site to reach these types of people? First, let us consider External People. If you are dealing with External People there are two viable strategies. One, you can position yourself as their external point of reference. The second strategy is to have people they respect or admire talk about your product.

The first strategy means that you have to be knowledgeable about your product or service as well as be trustworthy. Even sleazy car salesmen types don’t fare well here. Customers are much savvier than you may think and they certainly don’t want or need the traditional hype that has worked in the past in certain niches. The best rule of all is to always come from a place of integrity. In our work professionally modeling top salespeople over the years, my husband and I have always found that the best of the best have integrity and also create trust among their customers. I’ll delve more into this topic in a future article.

The second strategy involves telling your customers what people they respect have to say about what you are selling or providing. This means finding out who those people are for your particular customers.

In brief, with External People:

1. Provide as much information or referral material that you can.
2. Give as many testimonials as possible (more is better than less here)
3. Stress what others think about your product.
4. Have them see and or hear others’ reactions to your product or service.
5. Know that they are easily influenced by others.

Now, with Internal People, the strategy is totally different. With them you want to go out of your way to avoid telling them what other people are saying about your product or service. In fact, an Internal People will think less of you if try to sell your product based on testimonials or based on others’ opinions. They simply will view you as another idiot who has no clue about things.

In brief, with Internal People:

1. Suggest that they have their own internal check regarding the buying decision.
2. Stress that it is up to them and not up to you, as to whether to buy or not.
3. Avoid giving testimonials.
4. Tell them that you know that they are ultimately making the buying decision.
5. Know that telling them what others think is useless and may cost you the sale.

Also, remember that if you are an expert and or have someone else’s expertise to present regarding your product, it may be helpful to the Internal Person and only if the information is from an expert and is relevant.

In summary, it is critical in sales to know what criteria your customers are using when buying anything. This is why it is so important to appeal to both the Internal and External People in your presentation. In this way, you cover all possibilities; and you increase your sales as well as avoid missing half your customers and thus, avoid losing sales.

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As I have said before, Marilyne Woodsmall is one of the smartest marketing modelers out there, which is why many of the Marketing Gurus have sought her and her husband Wyatt, out for training.

While you may not have heard of them before, I can guarantee that if you have ever purchased anything online, you have seen their techniques being used.

To find out more information, you can go to The Science Of Idiots .com

I also suggest that you listen to the interview that I did wit her here.

Cheers,

DO TESTIMONIALS REALLY WORK?

Long before the internet came along, people have been giving testimonials for products. TV sales have always played a huge part in the conspicuous consumer society in which we live and still do so today. With the onset of the Internet, we have been overwhelmed with the typical and quite annoying bottomless sales letter that is riddled with endorsements and testimonials to convince prospective buyers to purchase a product or service.

And with TV shopping channels like QVC and the Home Shopping Network, testimonials play an increasingly important role in selling. Or do they? The question is do they really work with everyone? The answer is NO, NO, NO!!!

In fact, only about half of the population cares about what others think about a product before they buy it. The other half simply couldn’t care less what other people say about what they are buying. Which type are you? And more important, which type are your customers? Just because you may like to hear what other people are saying about products before purchasing them doesn’t mean that all of your customers think the same way. Or you may not care about testimonials and yet some of your customers won’t buy your products without them.

Are you a person who thrives on hearing what others have to say about a particular product? Or are you a person who can’t stand listening to or to reading about what people are saying about a product or service that you are contemplating buying? And there is another possibility as well. Are you someone who occasionally likes to read or to hear testimonials from certain individuals? How you answer these questions is quite revelatory.

In fact, it will determine still another People Pattern™ that comprises what we call Personality Language™. It is called the Evaluation People Pattern™. This all important Evaluation People Pattern™ determines how an individual makes a judgment, and in the context of this discussion, how an individual makes a judgment to buy a product or service. The emphasis is on how and not why.

Basically there are two major elements that make up the Evaluation People Pattern™. There are some individuals who make decisions to buy based on internal criteria and then there are some individuals who make decisions to buy based on external criteria. Those who make buying decisions based on internal criteria have what we refer to as an Internal Referential Filter or People Pattern™. They simply know inside that what they are doing or what they are buying, in this case, is the right thing for them. Those who make buying decisions based on external criteria have what we refer to as an External Referential Filter or People Pattern™. They need to hear what others think and tend not to buy anything without this feedback.

There are also some Internal People who, under certain circumstances, don’t mind having an expert give advice or information about a product, and only if it is information from an expert and not just anyone offering their opinion.

The bottom line is that Internal People don’t need feedback from others when it comes to buying products or services (unless, as mentioned, they want expert information under some circumstances); and External People need feedback before they purchase something. External People are often incapable of buying something without hearing first what other people think about it.

What this means for you in sales is that you have to tailor your communication on your sales page and/or in your presentation to both include testimonials for External People as well as include phrases that target the Internal People among your customers. Tune in next time to learn how to communicate with both types of customers in your audience, those with an Internal Referential Filter and those with an External Referential Filter.

This is from “ Personality Language” ™

By Marilyne Woodsmall

Add 50% Or More To Your Sales….. An interview with the author of the new book “Personality Language” Marilyne Woodsmall.

I did this interview when this book first came out and I see that there a few people have picked on just how valuable this really is and are starting to teach it.  But, why not get it from the Horse’s mouth so to speak instead.

Get comfortable and take a listen to an interview I did with the author of the new book Personality Language.  Listen in as we discuss how using Personality Language can dramatically boost your profits.

This is a totally new way to reach not only new customers, but get a lot more sales from your existing customers.

I hope to have more chats with her about this mind-blowing new way to communicate with your customers and increase your profits.

We talk about how Personality Language and you will find out why you want to layout all of your Blog posts, Sales Letters, and Information Products this way if you want to have the most success with them and become profitable.

Marilyne Woodsmall and Wyatt Woodsmall, who are Human Success Modelers  wrote  this as a primer to introduce this new way of thinking.

While you may not have ever heard of them before, I can bet that you have heard of, or seen on TV, or on the Internet, or read the books of some of the many people that either one or both of them have coached.  People like Anthony “Tony” Robbins, Eben Pagan of Internet Marketing fame (if you have never heard of him before, under the pen name David DeAngelo who sells over $20,000,000 of Dating eBooks and Advice on the Internet every year and doesn’t even have a published “real book”) , Joe Polish of Piranha Marketing, world-class Marketer and Joint Venture specialist extraordinaire, and finally a host of Olympic Athletes and Coaches that brought home oodles of Medals, and quite a few other people that you have heard or seen as well.

Again the Woodsmall’s don’t go out of their way to mention them as they don’t like to talk about the people that they have worked or are working with all that much. It is just the way they operate, and I can respect that.

The only reason that I bring these people up is help you give some weight to what I am about to share with you.  The folks that I mentioned have used what they learned from Marilyne and Wyatt to help make themselves tens of millions of dollars and to achieve success at a world class level that very few people are ever able to obtain.

Part of what those individuals did to obtain those ultra-high levels of success was to Leverage, with a capital L, what Marilyne and Wyatt gave to them to propel themselves to higher levels of success faster than they could have done on their own.

Now imagine if you had access to that same type of information that you could use to Leverage yourself to those ultra-high levels of success and profitability?  Now you can.

Take a listen and let me know what you think.

Press the play button and find out how to improve your sales with Personality Language.

Click below on the book cover to order the book and type in 21 to get a $5.00 discount.  I can’t recommend this book enough.  It is a game changer.  I will also be posting other interviews with Marilyne and Wyatt as soon I can talk them into giving up more information.

Even if you don’t buy the book, go and sign up for their newsletter at www.PersonalityLanguage.com as it is well worth it.

Domino’s Pizza announced today that their profits more than doubles on new recipe, or does it really.

Here is a link to the AP story the Domino’s Story. The short answer is I don’t think so.

Here is the poll I have had up since they did there big change. Look at how many people prefer the old version.  Take the poll yourself if you have tried out the new Domino’s pizza.

As I said in my first posts about them,

• Domino’s Doomed To Failure
• Domino’s Marketing

they  don’t know their customer very well and if they knew about “Personality Language” ™ they would not have gotten rid of the old version, but, instead just have added the new version to their menu.

I am not the only one that is skeptical.

“When a restaurant company radically changes their menu, usually there’s a curiosity bump involved in the results,” said Morningstar analyst R.J. Hottovy. “But it’s too early to tell if that’s going to be sustainable for a long time.”

Well, if you consider it did get a lot of publicity and they spent a boat load of money on on their PR campaign, a bump was there. But as they say, was is a dead cat bounce? I am inclined to think so.

That and the big number at the bottom – Annual revenue fell 2 percent to $1.4 billion from $1.43 billion.

As I have said in all my posts, I do wish them well, but I hope they smarten up and get with the program and bring back the old version. Which I have heard they already have done on a limited scale.

There are thousand of people that work for Domino’s that depend on the people at the top getting it right. I have spoken with a couple of the franchise owners and while they are keeping mostly quite, they are nervous.

I think they have every right to be quite a bit nervous actually.  We will see how this plays out next quarter.

Cheers,
Andrew Anderson

PS  I have a really cool post I have been working on for a bit now on Blogging that I think you will like.  And in another bit of news. I have officially gained the title of the King of misspellers as I have been informed by my proof reader.  I take full responsibility for any misspelling and grammatically errors from here on out as I usually don’t give here these before I post  them.  Then I have here busying working on the big projects it takes here a couple of days for here to get to them when I do remember to send them to her.   But, I look at it as a way to winnow out those people that don’t have a sense of humor about these things and gain those that are smart enough to figure out what I am Yakking about. LOL

Art Of Money Getting

I am making a copy of “Art Of Money Getting” By P.T. Barnum available to download in PDF format for FREE. This is from a post I did awhile ago, but I thought it worth mentioning again. It is worth rereading on a regular basis.

In the video I go over some of the highlights in the book. Click To Watch Video and it looks best in Full Screen Mode. Just hover in the lower right hand corner and clickthe Box. Hit ESC to come back to regular mode.

I am making 21to21.com’s reprint of P.T. Barnum’s classic book “Art Of Money Getting” available here for free in PDF format.

I dare say you have heard of P.T. Barum and his circus before, but you may not have heard of his ground breaking book. In this book you will find nearly every single thing you need to succeed even in today’s business world. It contains nearly everything you have probably read in any of the current best selling success books, but with a different twist.

I think it blows away the “The Secret” which was taken from a book written 40 years later.

If you read it, I would love to hear what you think about it so please post your responses back here. His advertising advice is amazingly accurate and coincides with what we have found.

To get it, simply go over to the right there and sign up for my Weekly Profit Results and you will receive a link to download it along with the other books as well.

Enjoy!

Andrew “Easy” Anderson

Here is another rookie mistake that I saw live in the morning.  Anderson’s PR Rule #1  Always now and control the outcome you want before you go on national TV.

I meant to comment on this in the other video as well.  And as you can see this is definitely not how you want things to go.

…

The solution to this of course was to just have them taste the Old and the New or at least have them know what the Old tasted like.  This is in conjunction with what I feel is the disaster that awaits them on December 27th.  Come on guys, you are getting paid big bucks here. You should not be making basic rookie mistakes like this one.    But, I guess we can all have a bad day.

OK, so for the rest of you what is the lesson here?  If you get on TV and it is actually easier than you think and actually I will give you some tips on how to do that, make sure that you control what is going to happen.  Although, I am pretty sure Domino’s shelled out some big bucks for the spot above.

Figure out the exact outcome that you want before you go on the air and then only set it up so that it can come out that way.  Got it?

You want the table slanted completely in your favor. And once you get on the air, they are not going to cut you off so just make sure you get your information out in a favorable manner.  Although the poor dude did the best he could to salvage a poorly set up PR move.

And I just got some fresh feedback from one of the Domino’s Franchisee’s that are already using the new recipe. He said that it was a pretty mixed bag on whether people liked the new pizzas.  He  said that quite a few people thought it was too spicy since they went from a black pepper sauce to a red pepper one.  He said to try the Marinara.

Now here again as I said in my previous post.  It does not matter how good the new pizzas are, they have a very good chance of alienating 65% of their customer base just by the very fact that they changed their whole pizza and are not giving people the chance to get the “Classic” Domino’s Pizza.

And yes, just think about the Coke fiasco.  There is a great piece on that at www.PeoplePatternPower.com.

So, think about this the next time you want to try something brand spanking new.

Here is a little secret. Don’t change your main product, simply add your new one and keep the old one.  This will actually have an appeal to a different type of People that have a another type of  Personality Language Pattern.   It is about Options and Procedures and you can actually have a very good chance of adding new customers this way.

Let me know what you think as always.  It is going to be fun to watch this play out here with these guys.  Here is the kicker, I know that a client of the Woodsmall’s or myself would not be making these mistakes.  It is just a lack of knowledge and understanding how customers think.  Again, if you have not purchased a copy of Personality Language, I suggest you do so.  It can save you a lot of time and money.

Cheers,

Andrew Anderson

Werror Day 6

Day 6 of the werror (web error) on the main page over at Coke.  No call from Warren Buffet or email from him either and the same goes for Coke.

Might see if I can get through the switchboard at Coke or at Berkshire Hathaway if I have the time but we have a launch coming up and that is in rather short supply.  Definitely a lesson for us all. 

Also I will post another really good free tool to help you avoid things exactly like this on your own site and how to have a much more profitable website.  I also  explain why I wrote that sentence exactly the way I did.

Here is a hint…. how would you like me to show you where to gain an audience as large as your current one that I can almost with 100% certainty say that you nor no one else is targeting at all no matter what niche you are in?

I kid you not… kind of a mind blowing marketing mega secret that I have decided to share with you soon.

Cheers,

Anderson

Don’t know who you are.

Don’t know your company or what it does.

Don’t know your product.

Don’t know know your record of actually doing anything.

Don’t know how you are going to help them.

Don’t know if what your are selling is worth their money or time.

Have never been to your site before and the only thing they are really interested in is how you are going to fix whatever problem they are having right now.

So……………..

How are you going to show them that you can fix their problem right away? Can they click at most two times to solve their problem?

If not your are losing customers….

This is a takeoff on a classic David Ogilvy Advertisement from about 40 years ago but it still rings true today.  The only thing your customers really care about is how you are going to help them solve their problems as fast as possible.   If you can explain their problem to them better than they can, they will credit you with the knowledge of how to fix it and therefore buy from you.

So, if you have visitors to your site but they are not converting or just plain leave, then your website design is hosed and does not follow the above.   If you don’t get your website fixed, you can bet there  is a competitor out there that will fix his or her’s and gladly take your customers away from you for good.

And also for Pete’s sake, sites with light backgrounds and dark text out sell sites with dark backgrounds and light text 2 to 1.  So, if you have an artsy fartsy web designer that says it looks cool…. tell her while that may be true,  making money form the site is actually even cooler.  

Cheers,

Andrew

The Easiest Fastest Way To Add 15% To 200% Profit To Your Business In The Next 2 Weeks That I Know Of….

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Got A Membership Site?

21to21.com MEMBERSHIP SITE NUMBERS – HERE IS WHY YOU NEED ONE!

Hi there,

Do those numbers do anything for you?  They sure do for  me! I put them right on top because if I don’t hook you right now, you could be losing thousands of dollars a month if you don’t read this.

I don’t care if you are just starting off in your new business be it online or offline i.e.  A Brick and Mortar business, are a non-profit or even a Church.  Membership sites can do those numbers and more, and I will show you how and why.

I had started to write a few paragraphs on the subject, but then I began thinking about all of the questions that I have gotten over the years about Membership Sites and decided to try to answer as many of them as I could.  The other reason that I am posting this now with  typos and all before my editor looks it over rather is so that I do not commit one of the worst 3 mistakes you can make  in Membership Sites and specifically in marketing period.  Read below to see what I am talking about.

Do you see why I spell Membership $ite with a dollar sign?

But first, a couple of questions for you if you don’t mind.

1. Would you like to add a lot of cash to your bottom line in the next 7 to 10 days? Say $250 – $20,000 or more.  (I realize a “lot” is relative here)
   
2. Would you like to finally get residual income from your blog posts, products, or even Brick and Mortar customers?
3. Can you handle making money while you sleep?
   

If you answered yes to any of the above then you are in luck.  Actually I think luck does happen, but I also think that you are here because you are supposed to be.  Because you are searching for a way to make more money for yourself and the kicker is that I am going to show you a way for you to make your customers happier at the same time.

I would hazard to guess that more than likely you do not have a Membership Site as you probably would not be here reading this although, maybe you have one and it is not working as well as you had hoped it would.  Regardless if you have one or not,  hopefully after reading this you will start putting yours together correctly and I mean as soon as you are done reading this.

Did you know that a Membership Site can add 200% to 300% or more to your bottom line within the next 7 days?  With those types of numbers ( I know you may not believe this yet, but those numbers might be conservative and I will show you why in a couple of seconds.)  I can’t think of any better way to increase profits and customer satisfaction than having your very own Membership Site.  If I can hold your attention for the next 30 seconds take a look at some numbers here that I have put together for you and I bet you will stick around and read the rest of this.

Let us take a look at the WHY, WHAT, HOW, and WHAT IF. (by the way, you should be using this formula in all of your marketing.  I will explain why in a later post or if you are a member you will get a full audio explaining this shortly)

WHY

Why you need a Membership Site is because you can add money to your bottom for a negligible investment of both time and out of pocket expense,  and give your clients more real and perceived value.

Lets say that you only have 687 people on your mailing list although it could be 10 times less or 10 times more.

Lets say you put up a Membership Site and you get 8%  of your people to join or around 50 members and you charge $9.98 per month.  We will round that up to $10 for easy math.  With 50 members paying $10 you just added $500 per month or $6,000 per year to your income.

Here again are some other Membership Numbers to look at as well.   No pie in the sky numbers mind you.

21to21.com MEMBERSHIP $ITE NUMBERS

Now there are a lot of memberships that charge $99 to as much as $999 per month, with quite a few in the $200 to $400 range.

But the numbers above are within reach of most even modestly successful business that have more than a few hundred clients.

Most Businesses with  products or services that have value and integrity no matter what it is, can get their Membership Site up to 500 members at $10 per month and keep it there long-term.  And I would venture to say that if you work diligently and avail yourself of some basic marketing techniques, you can get up to 2,000 Members or more.

A Membership Site Can Provide You

With More Money And

A Better Experience For Your Customers

WHAT

I am going to cover a number of  “WHATs“  here.

What a Membership Site does for you is raise not only the perceived value to your clients but, but also the real value as well.   Not only that, it is great for your business.  I honestly don’t know of a better business model for anyone that is trying to break into the Online business or even for those of you that already have an Online business.  They can also be used as a springboard for those companies that don’t have an Online presence as well.

There a quite a number of reasons for all of this and I will name name a few that I think are relevant.

1.   It allows you to give better quality and focused content.  This is because even using just our first example of 50 members at $10 per month, it will give  you an incentive to give them your best information if for no other reason than to make sure they stay members.  This is especially true if you are just starting out.  Because of the income your Membership Site will produce you will be able to spend more time and effort on what is in your membership site.

2.   While I give away a ton of my best information, it would be unfair to devalue “the best of the best” information by giving it away for free versus giving it to my paying clients.  Also, quite a bit of what I do,  I do not want out there for everyone and their mother in-law to see and use as it would hurt my own businesses. Which is where I implement and develop the information and techniques in the first place.

3.   It allows you to focus and fine tune content, and it allows you  to sell your content over and over again as you get new clients in.

4.   It is the easiest way that I know of for someone with knowledge to develop product. It is faster than writing a book, wood book (printed) or even an eBook.

5.   The investment can be minimal and range from about $0 to $25,000.  Even with the latter number, it is in a drop in the bucket when you think about how much it can cost to start a “Regular” Business. You can get a fully functioning Membership Site Installed for less than $130 and we have them as low as $75.

6.   You can start right away even before you have a lot of content. (I explain why in just a bit)

7.   It is probably the simplest way for most people to Automate their business and start bringing in residual income.

What a Membership Site is, is simply a way for you to make information private.  Privatize documents, audios, videos, forums, or even blog posts private and charge for them.

HOW

The how part is both as easy and as hard as you want to make it.  A Membership Site can be as easy as you going to your website and setting up a private directory that you password protect.  Now you can have one password or spend a minute giving each new member their own password that they have to use to gain access to the information.  Most hosting services have how-to instructions for doing this.  Cost?  ZERO!

For instances you have a Blog, just password protect the directory it is in and presto, you have a membership site.

Then there are other options that range from about $100 to about $25,000+ to get something that is close to Facebook or MySpace in functionality.  I will give you three examples of different types of Membership Software and set ups that I use for myself and my clients.  Each has pro’s and con’s.  Each has different costs and benefits. There is no one size fits all solution for everyone.

There are dozens and dozens of different Programs out there and I think that at one time or another I have tried almost all of them.  Most have some real drawbacks that do not become apparent until after you purchase them and try to use them.  Getting the wrong one can really bite you hard in wasted time, wasted money, and wasted opportunity.  You can spend days, weeks, or ever months tweaking them and still not have them do what you want them to.  We are talking potentially hundreds of hours of wasted time that you could be using to create more content or a better product for your clients.

Even the ones that I use all involve tweaking, but we seem to have hit upon three work horses that we have modified a little or a lot that work rather well depending on your situation and your audience.

You can go out there, buy one, try and install one of them and set them up yourself.  You can spend days, weeks or months going through the learning curve, or you can hire someone like 21to21.com do all of that for you.  You will save yourself the hassles and the headaches, and wasted money both spent and earned.

Warning - There are a ton of dirt cheap Membership Site Programs out there.  Some I have have seen for as little as $27.   Sounds great, looks good.  The problem is that many have big gaping security holes in them that are susceptible to getting hacked big time.  Not only can you lose your members and your data, but end up losing your hosting account too if they upload a virus on you server.    The reason I know this is because it happened to me.  We caught it in about an hour but it was not good.  No fun at all.  Now this was a couple of years ago and that was when I really started digging into Membership Sites.

After about two dozen plus trials of different software configurations, thousands of dollars, and hundreds and hundreds of hours later I have come up with three really good solutions that will fit pretty much every need possible that I have run into.  Descriptions and pricing are at the end of this.

Pricing And Incentive For Your Membership Site

This is the age old question and one that does not have one right answer.  You can start low say even $4.95 a month and attract a lot of visitors who will more than likely stay around for a while as long as you have good content or charge $50 per month if it is niche information of high value.  You can even charge $200 per month or more if you think you have something that is a real hot commodity, and has a bunch of bells and whistles.

The upside with the lower pricing is that it should be a no brainer sale but there is a perceived value stigma attached.  It is cheap so it must not be that good.  I have actually have a membership site which was priced at $4.95 per month. When I raised it to $27 per month I got more sales.  Same exact info.  Just different pricing and a different perceived value.  Go figure!

But one of the things that I do like is to have a tiered membership program that allows you to get the best of both worlds.  You can have two or more pricing levels of membership. We do this ourselves.  We actually have two levels at this time which are $27 and  $47 per month, each with a $1 dollar 14 day trial period.

Our members get a huge 50% discount on two of our Membership Installation Services and they get first crack at any of our training modules or products as we have a number of limited space educational products.  One level also gets a new eBook as well.

It is up to you how you want to incentivize but you should do it in some way to help get people get over their fear of the unknown.  If you have a good program like we do, you know that once they get in they are going to find tons of value for them to stay around for a long time.

With a multi-tiered membership program, you let them decide how committed they want to be.  Now if you have more than one level you are going to have to differentiate the content and value.  Perhaps you give the information to the higher level first or your throw in bonuses such as Webinars, conference calls, reports, audios, videos, books, consulting etc.

The best thing to do is to try out a couple of price points and see what happens.  You can also check out what your competition is doing and tag along.  But 9 times our of 10, they won’t have a Membership Site or if they do, it is not run that well.

Last but not least, how much would you pay for your information?  Are you a member of any Membership Sites, how much do you get and how much do you fork out for it?

Do Not Make These 3 Deadly Membership Site Mistakes

I have seen this with my own clients and finally learned the hard way about these three mistakes that will mess you up and can cost you thousands of dollars in profits.

The biggest mistake by far is waiting until you get all of your content just right before starting your Membership $ite.  After several clients in one quarter did this, I have learned to spot them a mile away.  I personally will drop a client like a hot potato that does any one of these three things.

1. They fiddle fart around and want to get all of the content perfect, they rewrite it 20 times and it takes days or weeks to get one little piece of content out.  If you are an anal retentive perfectionist, this is not going to be a lot of fun for you. And frankly, while I love to do things right, if you want to be a client, expect to pay a lot for this as it will take 3 to 4 times as long to do your site. But if you have the money, then we will be glad to help.
   
2. They don’t have “time” to put content into the site.  Both of these will ruin your membership site before it ever gets off the ground.
3. They Dork around with the “design” until it is just perfect.  In the meantime weeks or months go by and with it lost revenue and opportunities.
   
   I have yet to see any Membership Site that can’t be ready for a Beta run in 7-10 days once you get the software installed.  An exception to this would be if you are building a monster site with video, blogs, audio, and self-made profiles (See Backbone #3 below).  Those can take about a month to get up.  But even then, the foundations are usually ready in only 7 days.

   Now this was not always the case and it has taken me a while to figure this out.
   

   But I like to say that even if it is your very first Membership Site, you can start making money from it in 10 days or less in most cases.  And often times as soon as 72 hours after the software is installed if you just focus on content and let someone handle getting the software going for you.

   
   

   $ Anderson’s Instant Content Creation Tip

   Now a Tip for drastically speeding up your content creation is to simply record audio and then have it transcribed.  This can be in the form of having someone ask you questions or you just talking into a mike with a basic outline of what you are talking about in front of you.

   I will put in the word count on this particular post as I have a feeling it will be a rather long one, ( it is about 6,200 words) but if I were to do an audio of this and then have it transcribed over at YakWrite.com, it would cost me around $25 dollars for this.   So if you put post 1 piece a week like this you are looking at $100 in expenses.
   

   Lets see here now, if you have 250 members at $20 that is $5,000 divided by lets say even 10 hours of work that is $500 per hour!  I challenge you to show me any other “legal” business where anyone, no matter what their education level is,  that has some expertise in virtually any field or niche, can make that kind of money with only that amount of time invested.

   WHAT IF

   What if after your read this the light bulb goes on and you suddenly realize that you can do this?  Now imagine laying out your Membership Site Check List today so that you can get started.

   Set up a deadline that you will have it up by.  Be it 3 days if you are really gung ho or better yet, I suggest a 7-10 day schedule.  You can do it.  This is not government work.  Mark it on your calendar “Membership Site Launch.”  Now Mark your date and then I want you to add 5 more days and then put, REAL Membership Site Launch Day.  If you get it done on the first date, great, but more than likely it will take you a few extra days to get it right.

   Now lets not look at pie in the sky numbers.  Do you think you could get 250 peoploe in the whole planet to pay you $30 per month for the valuable information that you have to give?  I am willing to bet that you do.  If you are a Brick and Mortar company I will show you how you can use your walk in customer base to make money from a Membership Site no matter what you are selling.
   

   Membership Price	$30
   # OF MEMBERS
   	MONTHLY	YEARLY
   50	$1,500	$18,000
   100	$3,000	$36,000
   250	$7,500	$90,000
   500	$15,000	$180,000
   1,000	$30,000	$360,000
   1,500	$45,000	$540,000
   2,000	$60,000	$720,000

   
   

   Now the launch does not have to be any more than sending out an email to your list, putting up a blog post or doing a twitter  announcement.  Or you can do the whole launch dog and pony show, it is your call.  The most important thing is to get it up and let you customers and visitors know it is there.

   Now here is the CHECKLIST:
   

   • Figure out what software you are going to use and if you are going to try and pull a Lone Ranger or call in the Cavalry for back up.  Unless you have done this before, I seriously vote that you pull in the cavalry, even if you don’t use our great services.
   • Layout your content flow.  Click Here to see my post on Bubbl.  It is a great way to lay things out.
   • Create the content.  Use my instant content creation trick or even dig up your regular info and integrate it into your Membership Site.
   • Launch Your Membership Site and start making money!

   It really can be that easy.  Plan on spending some time getting it ready.  While you really can do it in 10 hours and for only a couple of hundred dollars, most people will end up spending more time than that on it.  But regardless, once you get it set up right you are good to go, and then it is a matter of adding content and marketing.

   
   

   $ Anderson’s Membership $ite Marketing Secret

   
   

   Probably one of the easiest ways to Market your Membership Site is through your own members.  Set up an affiliate program that pays your members anywhere from 20% to 75% of the monthly membership dues when they recruit other members.

   Very few Membership Site Programs have this built in.  Especially for recurring payments.  There is an an affiliate solution for all three of the systems that I use. (one of them is not integrated but still works)
   

   If your members like what you have, they can spread the word like wild fire and grow you Membership Site faster than anything else.  Now if your site is crap, this will not work of course. But you won’t have to worry about that because you are going to follow my guidelines for setting it up.

   Now even though you are paying part of your proceeds to your members for bringing in other ones, this means that you will also build a bigger base for everything that you are doing.

   After all this is said and done and lets say you already have 5,000 people that are following you either on your blog, on twitter, or are actual clients.  You start the Membership Site process today and 10 days later you put the word out and you get 500 members to sign up at $30 a month.  That could be $15,000 dollars a month in your pocket or $180,000 per year.  Or for that matter you only get 100 members and charge them $10, that is still $1,000 per month and $12,000 per year.  What will you do with that money?
   

   No matter how large or small your client or readership base is, the most important and easiest thing that you can do to improve your bottom line and put money in your pocket fast, is to have a Membership Site.

   When you sign up for our Membership, we offer a 20% commission.  We are a bit on the low side because our members stick with us for a long time and because of this, we can put the the extra money back into the information and research.  So if someone signs up 5 people, they are in for free.  Or if they offer it to their list, then they can make several hundred dollars a month and be doing their clients a favor at the same time.

   Now you can offer anywhere from 10% to 90% commissions or somewhere in between.  I go over pricing in a new study we are doing. The best answer is to test.
   

   
   

   21to21.com Membership Site Options

   
   

   We  have 3 different types of Membership Site Software that we use.   Then we have a basic installation and a Full Support installation.  All purchases include installation and basic  set up.

   
   

   Types of Membership Site Service

   Basic – Pay us a flat fee, then a small monthly maintenance fee  to make sure your site is up and running, and to take care of upgrades, etc.

   Full Support – We partner with you, set up the site and then do almost all of the heavy lifting and we split revenues with you  anywhere from 15% to 50%.   With the standard being 20%.  This may include assisting with marketing, branding, SEO and more.
   

   With our Full Support setup, if we set up your Membership Site do the maintenance and get everything is running smoothly help you bring in 500 members at $20 per month, you would net about $96,000 a year.  And you could conceivably be only spending about 2 hours a day on the site.
   

   This is the one that I prefer for obvious reasons as it involves the potential greatest benefit for both parties in that it allows you to concentrate on turning out content and get your Membership Site done for the lowest cost possible.  It also allows us to build and design the best Membership Site possible as we won’t see a profit unless it does work out.

   As you can imagine though, I have have become ultra picky about whom I work with on these as this has the most risk for us in case the client flakes out and does not deliver the content as promised.  If you do sign up for this one, be prepared to work your tail off and be able to meat deadlines on delivery of the content.

   Otherwise, I will not waste my time with you.  If you have a decent sized client base, this is by far the quickest, easiest, and least expensive way to get set up as you really only pay us only after you are bringing in money.  We do require deposit to make sure that you keep your end of the bargain and have monthly payment that gets waived as long as you keep the content delivery on schedule.  If you have content, have an audience, and want to put money in your pocket right away, this is the one for you.  You can drop thousands of dollars into your Bank Account very, very quickly.
   

   Membership Site  Backbones

   
   

   Silver - This is perhaps the simplest Membership Site Backbone that we use.  We use your WordPress blog as a content source and then are able to selectively make portions of the content available only to members.  You can have several different membership levels.  This usually can be set up in about 72 hours.  Training time takes about an hour or two.  Click Here for a Demo of what I am talking about.  This is OK if you just want to do something quickly and it is probably the easiest to run.  If you want something that is quick and dirty and it really can do the trick for a lot of people this will work.  Plus, we can upgrade you from #1 to #2 easily if you want to upgrade at any time.

   Price for the Basic Silver Membership Site Installation is $199

   
   

   Price for the Full Support Silver Installation Membership Site is $149 and 20% profit share with a minimum maintenance fee of $29 per month.

   
   

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   Gold Membership Site Installation – Our Gold Membership Site is very sophisticated and probably my favorite overall because it can be set up in a day and has some great benefits.  It has a built in and integrated Affiliate function that allows you to get Affiliates to help you sell your Membership and it can drip content out a little at a time so that if someone signs up today and you have other people that signed up two months ago, they won’t all have access to all of the information at once.  The person that just signed up will get the content given to them a little at a time.  This is the one that I use on this site.
   

   One of the things to remember is that you do not want to overload your Members with information.  While a few will like it (these people are referred to as information sorters by the way and make up only about 5% of the population), most will not, will become lost, and will quit being members.

   Pay Per Play Option And Service Available On Gold Membership Sites
   

   $$$$$$
   

   The Gold Membership Site also has the ability to deliver pay per view content. If you viewed or hear of the Secret a few years back, that was a pay to play video that made tens of millions.  If you don’t know what it is,  let us  say you have an instructional  video that shows how to build a better mousetrap in only 30 seconds and you know that it is valuable.  Well, we set it up so that people can watch the video say 3 times for $4.95.  They hit the button, make a payment and they are taken to the video and can watch it three times and after that, they can’t view it anymore.    Now you can charge any price you like for it or just make it available to be viewed by your members.  It can be an Audio, Video, or even a Document.  Perhaps a better name might be  “Pay Per Access”.
   

   Here is a demo of the pay per view it if you want to see it in action.  This will cost you $2.00 to see how it works.  If you purchase any of our Membership Site services, I will  refund you $10 if you watched this demonstration just to make it worth it.

   Also you will see when you sign up for this, there is an affiliate link too.  Us it and let other folks know about this and you can make $1 every time someone tries it out.

   This will give you a feel for what not only the Pay Per Play is like but the Membership site as well.  You can also skip down to the bottom of the page and Demo our 21to21.com Membership site and get this included.   Your call, I  just like to give you options.

Try Out The Pay Per Play Feature For Just $1 Dollar

We also have the Pay Per Play Service available as a stand alone Turn-Key Service at an unbelievable price.  If you have a video,  audio, slide show or document that you want to charge on a Pay Per View Basis, we will host it, set it up on a pay-per view basis and send you the money from it.  There is a $27 refundable set up fee and we also get 20% from each sale.  But you do not even have to have a credit card processor set up as we run it through ours and we take the the processing fees out of our share.  So if you charge $7 to watch your video, then you would net $5.60 on each viewing.  If you get 1,000 viewers, you would make $5,600.   Not too bad aye?

You can use this button to sign up for the stand alone service and yes, if you got the demo, you get $10 back.

PURCHASE  THE  PAY PER PLAY STAND ALONE SERVICE HERE

Gold Basic Membership Site Installation only $379.90.  It includes the Pay Per Play Feature.  Plan on spending at least 10-15 hours to get proficient at this if you are tech savy and a tad longer if you are not.

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Your Own Full Blown Social Networking Site That Rivals, MySpace, Facebook, and Ning

Platinum Membership Site Installation. This is a full-fledged Membership site that rivals and even surpasses what Facebook and MySpace have to offer.  It gives each member their own editable profile that allows them to upload videos, audios, have their own blog, forums, real-time audio and video chat, site news and forums, surveys and more.    The demo has been our lab for this for about 2 years now and I am just now letting it out of the bottle and it is still a work in progress.  I have just been too busy working with clients to put the finishing touches on it and plan on doing so soon, but we will always keep here as our improvement lab so expect good changes on a regular basis but we will keep most of it the same.  Click Here to see it and by all means, sign up for it and put your profile up.

You will gain a couple of things by doing setting up a profile there.

One, it will give you a good feel for what this type of Membership Site is all about.

Two, if you load up your contact information and put a link back to your site it will help with your search rankings.

Three, if you take the time to post your blogs to your blog there and basically reproduce it, make sure to put a link back to your site in each post. It will also make it easier for people to find you and help with your search rankings. Not to mention we plan on filling it up with members and you will more than likely get free business from it.

THE BEST FREE SEO TIP OF THE YEAR

Make sure to put a classified Ad for any products that you have for sale on the site too.  Now this may sound hard to believe but…..  I have had my  Ads recently turn up on the first page of Google for some pretty hard-core search terms.  That is right, off of a classified ad.

This is a full fledged Social Media Site with lots of potential.  Do you have the clients to fill the community like this?  If so, you could be making hundreds of thousands of dollars from it.

Contact us for an exact quote on this but prices range from about $2,500 to $25,000.

This blows away what you can do with Ning and other sites like it.  You have full control of advertising, and affiliates.

21to21.com Profit Memberships

21to21.com’s Silver Membership – OK and last but not least, if you want to try out our Membership Site here at 21to21.com, here is my special offer for you.  Try it out for $1.00 for 14 days and then it is only $27 per month.  You can stop at any time and there is no long-term commitment.  It also includes the Pay Per Play demo as well.  Not only that,  you get 50% off of any Full Support Membership Site Installation.

What it will give you is an inside look at how our Membership Sites work and also give you access to the information that I only give our paying members.

21to21.com’s Gold Membership – $1 dollar for 14 days and then only $47 per month.  Plus  you get an upgrade at www.QuitYourJobOnMonday.com, along with a copy of the New Book, ” Personality Language” by Marilyne Woodsmall and Wyatt Woodsmall.  This is a true gem.  You can check it out over at www.TheScienceOfidiots.com.  Plus a bunch more other goodies including a Profit Conference call and/or a webcast.

$1 dollar 14 day trial of 21to21.com’s Gold Membership

Your Next Step

I hope that you can now see how your very own Membership Site can be one of the quickest way to make a profit available to you.  Even if you don’t take us up on one our great offers, then at least get one going on your own.  You will be glad you did.

Finally, even though I do not want to throw too much at you,  I am putting together everything that I have learned about Membership Sites and more over the past few years and bundling them into a 6 month course that our Gold Full Service Membership Installation that we use here for our own Membership Site, plus marketing techniques, product creation blueprints and a whole lot more.  I will post information on it soon.

Our Members will get the first crack at it as there will only be 20-50 slots open the first go around.  So if you join above,  you will get the announcement first and have first try at the program.  And the price?  Only $97 per month if you can believe that.  Look for more details soon.

No matter what you do,  get your Membership Site up ASAP.  Because if you don’t, your competition is going to and once people find a home they like, they often stay there for a long, long, time.

If you have a question, just drop us a line via the contact page or give us a call at 307-459-1092  10:00 AM to 7:00 PM EST Monday through Saturday.

Cheers,
Andrew Anderson

You know something, every once in a while I screw up and I did and I will tell you how.  A lot of times, we like to just put our best foot forward and only focus on our successes.  Well, if you are human, you are going to mess things up every once in in awhile and I do that at least a couple of times a day.

What Results Are They Selling? Is It Clear? You Bet It Is!

Be it with a project, or a task, or even a client.  It does happen but don’t worry.  If you don’t make a mistake once in a while then you are not trying.

Honestly, I do and I did here.  But the kicker is that it is only a screw up if you don’t fix it.  Fixing this little error right now.

I messed up in that I did not make it clear what 21to21.com is all about.  Here goes nothing.

21to21.com is all about How You Can Make More Money, not just a little bit but a Boat Load More.  Big revelation actually.  It is not about great techniques or the nuances of writing great copy or marketing and learning gobs of stuff.  That is all hog wash honestly or I may got out on a limb here and say bullshit.  It is about showing you what you can go do to make more money ASAP.  This involves giving your customers what they want at the price they are willing to pay.

Really that is it in a nut shell.   The lesson here is usually your customer is thinking that exact same thing.  It comes down to basically two things

They want Results or to be Entertained.  That is what they will pay you for and if you do it right, they will pay you a lot.

So, what results are you going to deliver and how can you convey that to them?  For the most part they don’t care about you, they care about what results you are going to deliver to them period.

Oh, unless you are going to Entertain them, and even then it is Results.  So when you are speaking with your customers or marketing to them, what Results are you going to give them?  Make sure you convey it in simple understandable terms.

Just wanted to point out a couple of things.  21to21.com and the products and services we provide are not for everyone.

This also is a lesson for you in that you do not ever want to be all things to all people because if you go after them all, you will get none.

I think these guys know who there customers should be.What do you think?  The picture was taken at night but  I think you can make out the picture of the dog in the upper right hand corner.  I was driving to see a friend at the hospital one night and saw this and had to stop and take a picture because I thought, Wow, what a great piece of advertising.  It was on the side of a building.

21to21.com is not for you if:

• If you are not willing to change the way you do business, we are not for you
• if you already know it all
• if you are not willing to try several things at once
• If you are not willing to learn to keep what you are doing that is right and get rid of what you are doing wrong
• If you are prone to blaming others for you lack of success or frankly, if you are just a plain horse’s ass or a whiner
• If you have an ego the size of Manhattan
• If you refer to yourself as Queen, King, or any other form of royalty… you really had better be good at what you do and like royalty of old, be ready to defend your crown.… if you can,  then we would be happy to entertain working with you…
  
• If you can’t do a deal on a handshake
• If you are only in it for the money
• If you do not have a Win-Win philosophy

If you are offended by any of the above, then we are not for you.  However if you can answer in the affirmative, then lets have a chat.

The thing is that too many companies in their effort to attract clients do not let the client know that they are a bad fit.   Sometimes clients fool you as well.

And while I put up some of the more easily identifiable negative traits, sometimes it is nothing bad per say, it is just a bad fit personality wise.

In any case, do your best to try and keep some of your bad clients for whatever reason from ever becoming your clients in the first place and you will be doing both of you a favor.